Preventing Church Splits (HT: Thabiti Anyabwile)
Hooray for this GREAT post from Pastor Anyabwile:
It is so good. Truly. And it’s about far more than ‘just’ preventing church splits—it’s really about all of the ‘one anothering’ commands of Scripture. (Love one another. Serve one another. Pray for one another. Forgive one another. Bear one another’s burdens, etc.)
If you love the Church and would like to know how to love your local church better, take a few moments to read this. And then? Print it out (or give yourself a task and archive it electronically ) and spend some TIME with it in the coming weeks. It’s that good.
Let me share just a few of Pastor Anyabwile’s spot-on insights:’Every church split, by definition, involves people who are alienated in their affections toward one another. The splits occur when this alienation is hardened and seemingly intractable. But the roots of the split extend back to that time when everyone seemed to be getting along (meaning there were no obvious conflicts) but really didn’t know one another. That period is the calm before the storm. Introduce an offense, teach something that crosses someone’s pet sin or tender spot, and what appeared to be placid water begins to foam and roil until a major storm approaches the shores of the church.
As pastors I think it’s our duty to act while things are calm, to take a preventative step before these conditions for a split are aggravated. And, so far, I think one of the best antidotes to a split are wide, healthy, and spiritually encouraging relationships in the body …
– Hospitality: We must relinquish our passive approach to friendships. That’s the bottom line. We’re too passive in cultivating meaningful affection for one another. We wait for the relationship to come to us … We must teach our people to open up their lives by opening up their calendars and their homes. If our churches are going to be healthy enough to survive difficulties, then our people must have enough credit with one another—drawn from the tenderness of sharing meals and meaningful conversation—to trust and assume the best. We must know one another broadly enough and deeply enough to know when someone else’s apparent anger is really deep hurt, or when someone’s resistance is masking pride, or when a brother’s disappearance from the fellowship is likely a sign of trouble with sin. And we can’t see beneath the apparent in one another’s lives if we don’t actually cultivate friendships with others …
– Discipleship: If hospitality builds wide relationships, then discipleship builds deeper ones. It’s how we teach one another to obey all Jesus’ commands and follow His ways (Matt. 28:19-20). Given that, is it too much to expect that every member of the church has at least two intentional, spiritually-focused relationships in the church… a relationship with someone more mature that is building into their lives and a relationship with someone as or less mature into whom they are building? …
– Modeling: It’s no accident that the Lord of the church includes ‘hospitable’ among the qualifications for church leadership (1 Tim. 3). Why? Well, not simply because ‘hospitable’ is another way of saying ‘he’s a nice guy’ or ‘he’s friendly.’ Hospitable includes an active disposition to serve others by engaging and entertaining them. It is being generous with your self, giving yourself away to others. That tends to directly oppose the slow decay and passive approach to relationships in the church. It’s vital that we leaders model healthy relationships in the body. We must do that with fellow leaders, and we must do that with members in the body …
– Sentinels and Watchmen: There are those of us who have been called to be watchmen upon the wall, and there are those among us who like sentinels are scouting the area for trouble and opportunity. We must be faithful in reporting and responding to what we see and what we find. What do I mean? Take elders and deacons, for example. As leaders in the body, serving as ‘shock absorbers’ is one part of our responsibility … When a disgruntled parent in the nursery, or a member offended at a sermon, or disaffection in the ranks is first observed, do we as elders and leaders absorb that shock or do we multiply it? Do we understand that we have an opportunity to diffuse a situation before it multiplies? … Our job is to absorb these minor shocks to the body like a black hole, to submerge them into the deep void of forgiveness, and to work to make sure the complaint is heard, addressed appropriately (which could range from resolving a real problem to rebuking a sinning sibling), and stopped with us.
At her core, the church is a mass of spiritual relationships—individuals to the Lord and to one another, forming something more than the sum of her parts, forming a body. Lose these relationships and we unravel the church.’
Preach it, Pastor Anyabwile! (And thanks for living it too.)
MAN. I just love churchmen. (And yes, laypeople can be churchmen too because the definition means ‘an adherent or active supporter of the church.’)
Blessings to you —
Yours,
Tara B.
PS
One parting thought … What steps are we taking today to open (hospitably) our calendar and our home to authentic relationships—and thus, help to prevent church splits?
PPS
OK. One more ‘one parting thought’ … Is ecclesiology (irony alert) missing from your church? If you have no idea what I even mean, or if such a thought concerns you about all churches, you might enjoy this post from Pastor Anyabwile on POLITY.